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| <nettime> (cnn footage)(kali info)(from japan) [3] |
Table of Contents:
CNN footage/Palestinians-Update
mollybh@netspace.net.au
sept 11 information
Kali Tal <kali@kalital.com>
Three statements against war (from Japan)
toshimaru ogura <ogr@nsknet.or.jp>
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 12:51:58 +1000 (EST)
From: mollybh@netspace.net.au
Subject: CNN footage/Palestinians-Update
Dear List,
This was sent to me by my freind Valerie Soe
a videomaker in the States. A strange twist
on the truth of the pictures of celebrating
Palestinians.
Molly
- --- Forwarded message from valerie soe <vsoe@sfsu.edu> -----
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:59:35 -0700
From: valerie soe <vsoe@sfsu.edu>
Reply-To: valerie soe <vsoe@sfsu.edu>
Subject: that famous footage of palestinians celebrating--staged?
Dear All,
Here's some information about the recurring image of Palestinians
celebrating shortly after the WTC attack--something to consider since it's
been one of the most inflammatory images used to stir up the patriotic
frenzy. Please pass this along if you see fit--
v.
From: Peter X Feng <feng@udel.edu>
Subject: yet more info re: footage of Palestinian celebrations
This is getting more and more bizarre.
Disclaimer: I'm forwarding this from a colleague and do not know the person
who originally wrote the e-mail (for a media watch listserv). I am removing
the originating e-mail b/c I have not been granted permission to forward it.
So evaluate this info yourself.
I haven't been able to get a fast download on the video itself, but the DER
SPIEGEL story confirms the account.
> A few days ago a Brazilian student, Marcio, claimed CNN was showing old
> scenes of celebrating Palestinians, claiming they were celebrating the WTC
> desaster. Well, the scenes were not old, but were manipulated!
>
> In a recent statement CNN insisted that the famous footage was shot on the
> day of the WTC blast. Meanwhile, German reporters of the prestigious
> "Panorama" TV magazine investigated how the scenes were shot. What they found
> out was amazing. On German TV they aired, supposedly for the first time,
> parts of the entire 4-minute footage not previously shown.
>
> It became clear that a person was animating a couple of children to cheer in
> front of the camera. The woman cheering was offered a candy to act cheerful.
> She later said she was shocked that her pictures were shown in the context of
> the terrorist attacks. She had no idea what they were for. A total view of
> the scene shows a street largely full of at best apathic people doing
> business as usual. Only a handful of people standing in front of the camera a
> celebrating.
>
> You can see the video online on { HYPERLINK
> "<http://www.ndrtv.de/panorama/sendung/index.html.>http://www.ndrtv.de/pan
> orama/sendung/index.html." }http://www.ndrtv.de/panorama/sendung/index.html.
> The link is below the second picture and in German. But you can still see the
> pictures in the report. Forward to 7 minutes 45 seconds and watch it until
> the end.
>
> Furthermore, the highly regarded German magazine "Der Spiegel" has had an
> article on this. The article shows the picture of the woman getting candy and
> another one people showing more people in the background of the cheering
> kids. These people are passing by as usual.
>
> Read the article on: { HYPERLINK
> "<http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,158625,00.html>http://www.s
> piegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,158625,00.html"
> }http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,158625,00.html
> Unfortunately, in German as well. You can still see the pictures, though.
>
> The direct links for the video are either of the following:
>
> rtsp://193.97.251.26:554/media/tv/panorama/20010920_medien.rm
>
> or
>
> pnm://193.97.251.26:7070/media/tv/panorama/20010920_medien.rm
>
> Just copy either of the links and paste into the address bar on your browser
> and hit enter; it should load real player for you automatically.
>
> Perhaps somebody that speaks German can make us an English transcript. It is
> a ten minute video; the relevant part begins about 7min 30secs into it.
>
> The question is: if it was staged who staged it and why?
- ------------
Peter X Feng
Assistant Professor of English and Women's Studies
University of Delaware
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot
drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence
multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending
spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the
dark abyss of annihilation."
- -Martin Luther King, 1963
- ---------------------------
Valerie Soe
oxygen productions
"you can't live without it"
- ---------------------------
- ------------------------------------------------------------
This email sent from Netspace Webemail: www.netspace.net.au
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 20:28:47 -0700
From: Kali Tal <kali@kalital.com>
Subject: sept 11 information
FYI, I have set up a page with links to info on the terrorist attacks
of Sept 11 and their aftermath, preparations for war, etc. Please
feel free to visit and add links that I am missing. It's set up with
a Yahoo-style directory, including subcategories, as well as a search
engine. I'm hoping that the site will be of use to college
professors, activists, and others who are trying to assimilate the
recent events.
http://www.u.arizona.edu/ic/humanities/september11/pages/
Kali Tal
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 15:08:05 +0900
From: toshimaru ogura <ogr@nsknet.or.jp>
Subject: Three statements against war (from Japan)
Dear all,
Hellow, this is my first post to nettime. A lot of Japanese
organizations and individuals has already taken action against war. I
forward three statements in Englsih in Japan. [1]and[2] need your sign
on, please send your e-mal to the organizers.
toshi
Networkers against Surveillance Taskforce (NaST)
((((((((((^0^))))))))))
toshimaru ogura
ogr@nsknet.or.jp
http://www.jca.apc.org/~toshi/
Repeal Wiretap Law!!
((((((((((^0^))))))))))
====================================================================
[1]Joint statement: We oppose the U.S. war of retaliation and Request
the Japanese government to retract its support for this war.
[2]We categorically reject the retaliation war of the United States
against the terrorist attack and We demand a peaceful solution ** A
call for global solidarity against global war **Proposed by Violence
Against Women in War Network, Japan.
[3]Stop U.S. Military Retaliation; Don't Carry Out Ethnic and Religious
Discrimination. A Statement from the Pacific Asia Resource Center
===================================================================
[1]Joint statement: We oppose the U.S. war of retaliation and Request
the Japanese government to retract its support for this war.
Friends,
We are sending, attached and pasted, our joint statement, titled, "We
oppose the U.S. war of retaliation and Request the Japanese government
to retract its support for this war,"an anti-terrorism, anti-war joint
statement on the NY-Pentagon incident and the US response to it. This
statement was originally prepared by 31 citizens in Japan on Sept. 18.
By Sept. 23, more than 1500 citizens from all walks of life, mainly
from Japan, signed it. This indicates serious concern shared by citizens
in this country.
We appreciate that you will share this position statement with your
friends.
We are horrified at the prospect of more innocent people having nothing
to do with terrorism falling victim to violence, in addition to those in
the United States victimised by the terrorist attacks. In Japan too,
anti-war action is being launched in Tokyo as well as many other places
in the country.
We are heartened to hear similar voices are being raised in the United
States, Europe, and elsewhere, and we wish to join them.
Let us keep in touch.
Joint statement signatories
Contact point: ppsg@jca.apc.org
=============================================================================
We oppose the U.S. war of retaliation and
Request the Japanese government to retract its support for this war
September 22, 2001
We were shocked at the sight of the massive destruction and
deaths that resulted from the suicidal attacks at the economic and
military centers of the United States carried out on September 11 using
passenger airplanes as weapons. Thousands of innocent people were killed,
and many more people suffered physical and psychological injuries. We
who seek a world free from violence condemn this act, whatever its
motivation, as a crime we cannot tolerate. We express our profound
condolences for the victims to the bereaved families, their relatives,
and friends, and wish for quick recovery of those who were injured.
We are alike shocked by what the U.S. government has decided to
do in response to this incident. President Bush, declaring that the
attacks were “acts of war,” decided to launch “the first war in the
21st Century” mobilizing the whole international community to retaliate
against the terrorists. Islamic extremists headed by Osama bin Laden are
the immediate putative enemy. The United States is engaging in a
full-scale war to annihilate“terrorist systems”said to be spread all
over the world. The world’s superpower has thus declared war against an
entity which is not a state. Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz
explained that the military campaign has as its objective termination of
the terrorist networks and the states harboring terrorists. President
said that the war will be large-scaled and prolonged . White House Press
Secretary Fleischer briefed that in this war no option is excluded. The
U.S. Congress passed a resolution giving President all powers of
exercise of military forces and allocated $40 billion for this war. The
NATO has decided to participate in this war invoking its collective
security clause.
Meeting an act of terrorism with a full-scale war is an unusual response.
The September 11 mass killing of civilians obviously constitutes a major
international crime, a crime against humanity. In addition to procedures
under the U.S. domestic law, the perpetrators and accomplices of this
crime should be brought to justice under the international laws and
tried and punished by an international criminal court set up by the
United Nations. Without such procedures proposed, the United States
declared a state of war. Military attacks on Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan are impending, and given the declared purpose of destroying
the international terrorist systems, the theater of war is not limited
to that country.
For the following reasons we strongly oppose this call for war
and ask the Bush administration to immediately retract it.
Firstly, this war not only would fail to bring about solution to
the problem but also is highly likely to bring the whole world into an
infinite chain reaction of violence and hatred. It is impossible to
eradicate amorphous networks of terrorists by regular military means. As
long as the social soil generating terrorism persists, the eradication
of one organization would not foreclose the emergence of another. More
importantly, the September 11 incident strikingly demonstrated the high
vulnerability of ”advanced societies,”that makes their perfect defense
a matter of impossibility. Predictably, the U.S. retaliation is likely
to invite an escalating terrorist counter-retaliation, which will be met
by yet larger-scale counterattacks, thus leading the world into a
situation without exits victimizing an ever larger number of innocent
civilians. The only way to prevent such would be to introduce a complete
global system of surveillance that will deprive individuals everywhere
of their freedom and privacy and destroy democracy. Already, steps are
being taken in this ominous direction.
Secondly, we hear in the loud official and private voices
calling for vengeance a horrifying note of arrogance and hatred,
indicating the revival of colonial-time notion of civilization versus
barbarity. This war is described as a war to protect civilization
(Secretary of State Powel) and the struggle of “the good against the
evil" (President Bush). Reports are arriving about Arabs and South
Asians in the United States being treated with hatred and violence. The
mainstream opinion in Europe seems to uncritically accept this
civilization-versus-the-other approach. The perception that this
arrogance equating Euro-America to civilization has historically
humiliated and excluded the Islamic world and eventually generated
antagonists to the “West” is dangerously absent in the dominant
retaliation discourse.
“Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer
of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such
atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process ? or why the
United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim
countries, but across the developing world ? seems almost entirely
absent.” (Seumas Miln, The Guardian Sept. 13)
The lack of this recognition fuels terrorism as a desperate form
of action. The world remembers that the United States, by waging wars
from Vietnam War to the Gulf, by supporting dictatorial regimes in Latin
America, Asia, and elsewhere, and, among others, by backing Israel's
unlawful occupation of Palestinian territories, have directly and
indirectly caused the deaths of far larger numbers of innocent
non-combatants than the victims of the September 11 incident. Now the
dominance of the world by the United States has come to an unprecedented
level. The United States behaves as the global power center imposing
neo-liberal globalization on the overwhelming majority of the world
population, without addressing the resultant yawning gap between the
rich and the poor and the disruption of the global environment. The Bush
administration, adopting unilateralism as its policy, has been
disrupting one positive international arrangement after another, ranging
from global warming through ABM, nuclear testing, and international
criminal court, to racial discrimination, all in the name of the U.S.
national interests. This has provoked yet more intense public criticism
and anger throughout the world. Such a global environment that the
United States itself has created is the historical backdrop against
which the September 11 incident occurred. In this sense, we consider
that the September 11 incident victims were also sacrificed by the U.S.
global domination.
Prime Minister Koizumi surprised us by promptly expressing his
unconditional support for the United States’ ”war of retaliation.”
The Japanese government is now searching for ways to enable the Japanese
Self-Defense Forces to participate in the war, either by making new laws
or misusing existing laws. They are also taking advantage of this
incident to introduce crisis management packages and to militarize
society. The government and ruling parties have decided to revise the
Self-Defense Law in order to protect U.S. military bases in Japan and
facilitate SDF’s deployment for internal peace. These rightwing forces
are now using the U.S. war for a trial run of a war-capable state
introduced under the 1997 Japan-U.S. joint defense guidelines.
We are convinced that Japan ought to do exactly the opposite. If
Japan is a country that“renounces war forever as a sovereign right of
the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling
international disputes,” (Article 9 of the Constitution), what Japan
ought to do with confidence and dignity try to persuade the United
States into opting for other solutions based on ”the trust in the
justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world.” (Preamble)
The situation strongly suggests that only this approach will open up
perspective for the prevention of another tragedy of the same kind.
We demand that the Japanese government, following the Japanese
constitutional pacifism, retract its support for the Bush government’s
war of retaliation and request the U.S. government to drop its war plans.
We demand that the Japanese government drop its attempt to use
this opportunity to become a full-fledged “war-capable state.” In
concrete, we demand that the Japanese government abandon its
state-of-emergency legislation, SDF law revision for the protection of
U.S. bases, new legislation and/or enlarged interpretation of the
guidelines related laws for SDF’s war participation.
We demand that the Japanese government drastically review its
policy of promoting neo-liberal globalization processes that intensify
social tensions and conflicts everywhere to an unbearable level. On this
basis, the Japanese government should propose to the WTO and other
related agencies a fundamental change of direction in global
politico-economic management toward mitigating social tensions and
ending elimination of the people at the bottom and further destruction
of environment.
If people’s security matters, marking a step forward in this
direction is the only way to enhance the security of the people in the
United States as well as the rest of the world.
This is time we should cut the vicious cycle of violence and
hatred. Whether the September 11 tragedy can be the starting point in
this direction or be the trigger to set the vicious cycle of violence
into motion depends on our ability and will to create viable people’s
linkages to prevent the war and its expansion.
We are encouraged by voices coming from grieved New York people,
“Peace, Not revenge!” In these voices we sense that many in New York
who experienced the clashing calamity, now feeling war, bombing, and
massive violence close to them, find that vengeance using overwhelming
military power and the show of American force do not make amends for
their grief. Voices against this war of vengeance are rising from peace
movements and informed public of the United States. They are rising
everywhere in the world.
We join our voices with them. Let us act together to stop the
war and create a world that does not foster terrorism!
Original signatories include:
Akiyama, Naoe (Japan Negros Campaign Committee)
Ishizaki, Atuko (Grass Seeds Association)
Ukai, Satoshi (Hitotsubashi University)
Oshima, Koichi (Christian Political League)
Otsu, Kenichi (National Christian Council of Japan)
Ogawa, Yoshinobu (Christian Peace Network)
Kimura, Kenzo (Catholic Council for Peace and Justice)
Ogura, Toshimaru (Project against Network Monitoring)
Kurihara, Yukio (literary critic)
Sugimoto, Rie (Institute of Local Science)
Ogasawara, Kimiko (NCC-J, Peace and Nuclear Issues Committee)
Ohashi, Yukako (Soshiren: From my Body)
Tawara, Yoshibumi (National Network on Children and Textbooks)
Tono, Haruhi (Asia-Pacific Workers' Solidarity Links)
Tomiyama, Yoko (Japan Consumers' Union)
Nakayama, Chinatsu (writer)
Hanasaki, Kohei (Sapporo Freedom School)
Fukutomi, Setsuo (Concerned Citizens of Japan)
Matsui, Yayori (VAWW-NET-Japan)
Muto, Ichiyo (People's Plan Study Group)
Yoshikawa, Yuichi (Concerned Citizens of Japan)
Watanabe, Ben (Center for Transnational Labor Studies)
Mizuhara, Hiroko (Japan Consumers' Union)
Yamaguchi, Yasuko (Women's Democratic Club)
Yamaguchi, Yukio (Citizens' Nuclear Information Center)
Mizushima, Asaho (Waseda University)
Ota, Masakuni (writer)
Amano, Yasukazu (National Fax Network Against War)
Oda, Makoto (writer)
Tomiyama, Ichiro (professor)
Tachiyama, Kouki (Yamaguchi University)
===================================================================
[2]We categorically reject the retaliation war of the United States
against the terrorist attack and We demand a peaceful solution ** A
call for global solidarity against global war **Proposed by Violence
Against Women in War Network, Japan.
==========================================================
http://www1.jca.apc.org/fem/lookout/NoViolence/index2.html
=======================================================
Urgent Appeal
Japanese version Jump to Petition From
We categorically reject the retaliation war of the United States
against the terrorist attack and We demand a peaceful solution
** A call for global solidarity against global war **
Proposed by
Violence Against Women in War Network, Japan
September 17, 2001
We demand:
1.The United States government should call off the preparation
for the retaliation war against the international terrorist
attack.
2.The Japanese government should not cooperate with the United
States military policy.
3.The United Nations should establish International Criminal
Tribunal to prosecute and punish the perpetrators of the
terrorist attack.
4.The racist attacks against Arab people should be stopped.
5.A just and co-existence world should be created in order to
eliminate the root causes of terrorism.
We, VAWW-NET Japan and our friends have addressed the issue of Japan's war
crime committed in the 20th century. Our objective is to create a
violence-free 21st century. We are deeply shocked at the terrorist attack
that occurred in the first year of the new century, and we are frightened
by the United States government call for the retaliation war.
We express our profound condolence for thousands of loss of lives and
share grief of those who have lost their loved ones. This attack may be an
unprecedented tragedy in American history in which so many Americans
perished in a single day. What the tragedy implies, however, is that
security policy of the world's largest military might did not protect
their citizens. The center of its economy and the military power were so
vulnerably destroyed. Yet, even before the perpetrators are identified,
President Bush called it "acts of war", and announced the military attack
in revenge and vowed the United States will win this war of "good versus
evil", and "civilization versus barbarism". We express our uncompromising
rejection to the retribution by force.
This terrorist attack is an international crime, not a war. This carnage
is a crime against humanity. The crime needs to be brought to justice at
the International Criminal Tribunal which the United Nations should
establish: the perpetrators and the accomplices need to be prosecuted and
punished through due process according to international law. However,
President Bush declared that the United States and its allies would
destroy not only terrorist groups but also the states which aid and harbor
the terrorist groups, ignoring the role of the UN. A budget of 40 billion
dollars is now allocated for the military strategy. Isn't this act of
President Bush a violation of international law? It is a renunciation of
democracy and the rule of law -- the very pride of the United States. We
oppose to this belief of the United States leaders -- violence against
violence. Violence does not eradicate terrorism. Violence only produces
more violence. The history has proven it. Peaceful means is the only way
to end the cycle of violence.
The United States media fans the emotion of the public towards the
direction of the Third World War as the public opinion overwhelmingly
supports the use of force. We wonder whether the United States citizens
who support the retaliation ever thought of the reasons why they were
targeted. The victims of this tragedy are the victims of the mistaken
foreign policies of their own government. The victims include a number of
people from other nations. We recall the millions of death of not only
other Asian people, but also of Japanese citizens caused in the Japanese
war of aggression in the last century.
People of the world remember that the United States has killed thousands
of thousands more people in the world -- in Vietnam War, in the Gulf War,
by aiding the dictatorships in South America and in Asia, by bombing Sudan
and former Yugoslavia, and in supporting Israeli government who continues
occupation of the land of Palestine. In the present time, it is the United
States which propels globalization that has caused enormous economic
disparities between wealthy and poor nations, environmental destruction,
and armed conflicts. The Unites States government rejects international
cooperation on such issues as global warming, nuclear non-proliferation,
establishing International Criminal Court, and the UN World Conference
against Racism. Peoples in the world feel outrage and even hatred against
the United States. We also recall the United States itself has provided
terrorist groups with weapons. These are the causes of this terrorist
attack. Without addressing these root causes, terrorist attacks would
never be eliminated. It would remain "the weapon of the weak".
A woman from an Asian nation has written to us: "I wonder if Americans
know how devastating a war is." She suffered the war waged in her own
land. If one feels raged at the loss of thousands of Americans, would not
she/he think of the possible loss of lives of women and children in such
nations as Afghanistan? Those people would be killed in the war that the
United States is about to initiate. Should not these deaths be prevented?
The military attack against Afghanistan will certainly cause more deaths
among 4 million people who have already suffered from hunger caused by the
United States economic sanction. We are also concerned about violence
against women in the case when the ground troops are deployed.
As Americans were plunged into sorrow, these people would experience the
same. Is it true that the victims of the terrorist attack would want such
cruel revenge? Is it true that their soul may rest in peace by another
tragedy? We do not believe that hatred nationalism is what they want. The
lives in the non-Western world need to be protected as much as the lives
in the Western world need to be protected. This belief lies in the heart
of democracy and in the principle of human rights -- the "civilization"
that the United States values.
We have heard that people of Arabic origins in the Unites States are now
facing vicious racist violence. We demand such violence be stopped
immediately. At the same time, we are encouraged by receiving "other
voices", many statements against war from United States citizens of
conscience. We want to act in solidarity with those who courageously
pursue peace in the midst of patriotic warlike chauvinism.
NATO nations' support of the United States military attack is, we
perceive, an expression of repressive means against peoples in the South
such as Muslims. The NATO support of the United States government is a
refusal of the reflection on their past of imposing colonialism. It denies
the efforts to reform unjust North-South inequality that exists today. We
hope civil society in the West take action for peace, not the use of
force.
As Japanese citizens, we are deeply concerned about the Japanese
government's support of the United States government. The Koizumi
administration already decided to modify the Self Defense Forces Law in
order to protect the United States military bases located in Japan. It
already talks about establishing the emergency preparation system and
deployment of Self Defense Forces to keep public order. Right wing
nationalists abuse this tragedy to implement the Guidelines for US-Japan
Defense Cooperation system to cooperate the United States military action.
This is a major step to turning Japan into a nation capable of waging war.
We are apprehensive that violence against women may worsen in Okinawa
where the United States military bases are heavily located and the
function of which will be intensified. We, again, express our strongest
rejection to proceeding the road to militarization and to cooperating war.
We shall not cooperate any military action to kill. We steadfastly stand
for the principle of our peace constitution.
We must prevent a global war by any means. It will be a global war of the
"North" - the United States, Europe and Japan - against the "South." These
nations of the "North" have promoted globalization that have caused
arising of fundamentalism and nationalism world wide. People in the
"South" especially suffer from these effects of globalization, and they
resist globalization. We appeal to citizens of the world including United
States citizens of conscience to unite and oppose the globalization of war
by our "globalization" of solidarity. Our deep belief firmly stands in the
philosophy of non-violence that denies all forms of violence. We ask women
all over the world to work together to create a 21st century of peace, not
to repeat the century of war.
Yayori Matsui
Chairperson of VAWW-NET Japan
=======================================
[3]Stop U.S. Military Retaliation; Don't Carry Out Ethnic and Religious
Discrimination. A Statement from the Pacific Asia Resource Center
Please forward freely.
================================================================
September 17, 2001
Stop U.S. Military Retaliation; Don't Carry Out Ethnic and Religious
Discrimination
A Statement from the Pacific Asia Resource Center
================================================================
We, the Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC), express our sorrow at
the tragedy caused by the "simultaneous terrorist attack" on
September 11, in which countless thousand of precious lives were lost
and many more were injured. We extend our sincere and heartfelt
condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their
lives on September 11. We cannot accept such a horrific violent
attacks.
Our movement, PARC, was established in the late 1960s, stemming from
the Anti-Vietnam war citizen movement. We have been working to build
equal relations among the people of Japan, Asia and the Pacific Ocean,
and Third World countries. Based on this position, we express our
opposition both to the "simultaneous terrorist attack" and to
political responses against this attack both by the US and Japan.
First, regardless of what group prepared and implemented this violent
attack - although the US government seems to have identified the
criminal - we strongly oppose that this attack be called an Act of
War, and we oppose the US claim that it has a state right to retaliate
using military power. We also strongly oppose US plans for a violent
military retaliation.
We believe that it is important that a thorough investigation be
conducted by international justice authorities and civil police of
several countries, and that any response should wait until the release
of the results of this investigation. Blind military retaliation by
a single nation or by mobilizing allied countries might lead to the
sacrifice of as many innocent citizens as this attack or more. And
such military retaliation will produce a vicious military escalation.
Secondly, whoever conducted this attack, we should not identify them
with the ethnic groups and religion they belong. Ethnic and religious
prejudice and discrimination should be prevented.
It has been reported that hate crimes (crime based on prejudice or
hatred) have occurred and that the one-sided information spread by
the mass media has inflamed prejudice in the United States. We want
to sound an alarm bell against prejudice against Islam and the Third
World, which is spreading in parts of Western and Japanese society.
Thirdly, no matter how cruel and miserable a situation was caused by
this "simultaneous terrorist attack," we should not defend the
cruelty and miserable violence, war, and terrorism committed by the
US (both government and army).
Without even going back to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, it is clear that millions of innocent people were killed
in Vietnam, Iraq, Sudan, Nicaragua, Panama, the Balkan Peninsula and
other places by war and state terrorism carried out by the US which
has appointed themselves as the policeman of the world and believes
that all justice and good are in its hands. Furthermore, the
governments of many countries which have received U.S. military and
material support have murdered many of their people using their own
armies. Indonesia under the Suharto Regime, with the support of the
West and Japan, carried out the military occupation at East Timor,
and a number of people equal to the victims of the atom bombing of
Hiroshima have fallen victim there. State terrorism in the Third World
supported by Europe, the U.S. and Japan have received no or little
coverage compared to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center
Building in New York. While we express profound condolences to the
victim of this "simultaneous terrorist attack," we think that unless
we expand our condolences equally to people who were victimized by
the countless wars and state terrorism led by the US in the past, we
cannot guarantee the security of innocent peoples from any violence.
Fourthly, we are deeply concerned about the effect of the
globalization of the market economy, pushed mainly by the US after
the Cold War. This process is dividing the world more than ever into
the powerful and the powerless, and this drives marginalized people
to despair. There is a mechanism through which marginalized people
can find hope in terrorism from a situation of despair. The arms these
people hold are weapons exported by the strong, and through these
exports, the arm traders have become even stronger. And armed
terrorism victimizes many innocent citizens. What we need to do now
is to cut this vicious circle of economic globalization and terrorist
attacks. In order to make the 21st century one of hope, it is crucial
to build alternative logic among people based on solidarity and
friendship as global citizens against the logic of the nation states,
international institutions and giant global corporations.
Finally, we must refer to Japan's moves toward militarism using this
"simultaneous terrorist attack" as a pretext. Japanese politicians,
most of whom belong to the LDP, plan to enact a new law for emergency
situations and establish a notion of the right of collective self
defense, which has so far not been acknowledged in Japanese society.
We strongly oppose such moves towards the strengthening of military
force and the approval for Japan's Self-Defense Forces to participate
in the joint military action.
We understand that stopping terrorism and providing people with
security is needed in order to abolish structural violence around the
world and to realize solidarity and confidence among global citizens.
We cannot abandon pacifism and the confidence that all nations love
peace, which is mentioned in the preface of Japan's Constitution, as
a means to attain this purpose.
September 17, 2001
Pacific-Asia Resource Center (PARC)
2F Toyo Bldg. 1-7-11 Kanda Awaji-cho Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 101-0063 Japan
Tel: 81-3-5209-3455 Fax: 81-3-5209-3453
E-Mail: parc@jca.apc.org
http://www.jca.apc.org/parc/index-e.html
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What is PARC? Founded in 1973, PARC is a secular, non-profit,
multifunctional organization working together with the various
people's movements in Japan to facilitate development of solidarity
links with people in struggle in Asian, Pacific and other
countries. With more than 500 due-paying members among movement
activists, researchers and professinals all over the country, PARC
is the publisher of English and Japanese periodicals, a research
and documentation center, and an educational institution, as well
as an organizer of international solidarity activities.
Our activities are guided by our belief in the power of people to
liberate themselves and to create a better, more humane world. We
believe that Japan should change so that Japanese dominating them
and without destroying the Earth's environmnet. We contend that the
people in the North and the South should work for a common future
vision of a liberated world.
PARC has numerous partners overseas, both secular and religious. We
are affiliated with El Taller and Bangkok-based ACFOD. In 1989,
together with numerous other popular organizations in Japan and
abroad, we initiated the People's Plan for the 21st Century, in the
form of a series of related international workshops, which launched
an alternative world through transborder participatory
democracy. PP21's Minamata Declaration serves as PARC's guideline.
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